Shadows And Regrets
by ppg713
Summary: AU from the Pilot, a Sam-centric sis-fic . Dean & Claire go to Stanford so Sam can help them find John, but end up uncovering secrets that may change the way they see their baby brother… and their dad.
1. Chapter 1

**Ok so, this is my first fanfic ever. Not very good writing but the plot's been stuck in my head for a while and now my exams are over I thought I should just get it out of my system.**

**It starts at the beginning of the Pilot, and it **_**is**_** a sister-fic, which I usually hate, but in this fanfic the sister isn't the focus of this story it's really a Sam-centic fic. Background you may wanna know = Claire (sister) is the middle child (1year younger than Dean and 3years older than Sam). She's a lot like Dean personality wise, but has a softer side and isn't **_**too**_** scared of a chic-flick moment. **

**I've taken some artistic licence with a few details, eg. Sam's been at Stanford for 4years at this point (not 2 or whatever it is in the show), he lives in a house (not an apartment) etc. it's all little details that will contribute to the plot, but I suppose you'll see a little later; I've stalled too much already :S**

**Disclaimer: don't own, never will etc. etc.**

A crash had awoken him, his eyes snapping open to reveal the darkness of the early hours of the morning. He looked to his left to see his girlfriend fast asleep, before the sound of whispered voices snapped him back into attention.

Instantly awake thanks to years of training, he made his way down the stairs of his house, flattening himself against the wall so as to get a better look at the shadows of two intruders in the next room. While the smaller was searching through items on his coffee table, the bigger of the two was moving towards the stairs. Sam took his chance. Adrenaline pumping he tackled the bigger one, but he started fighting back and soon the smaller one had joined in as well. He held his own for only a few more minutes before he started to tire. He felt a small flutter of panic at the thought of his loved ones asleep upstairs as he realised he was being overpowered...

"Easy tiger" damn he was pinned. Wait, he knew that voice:

"Dean?" the smirk on his big brothers' face right now was all too familiar, "you scared the crap out of me"

"well that's because you're out of practise" Sam's anger got the better of him, and the tangle of bodies started to roll as Sam managed to pin Dean with his elbow and the other intruder with his knee. Sam briefly heard a "Or Not" from the direction of his elbow, while the body under his knee started bucking to get out of the hold and his mind slowly put two and two together: if this was Dean, then the other intruder must be…

"Claire?"

"Nice to see you too Sam, now get off me!" The sound of his big sisters voice made him cringe slightly in an apology as he let her go.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" Sam asked, helping the siblings he hadn't seen in four years to their feet.

"Well I was looking for a beer"

Claire chipped in "And I could use a toilet break" her smirk truly was one to rival Deans.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Dean got down to business, "We need to talk" Sam and Dean unconsciously squared up against each other, and Claire rolled her eyes at the familiar pose from the late years before Sam left for Stanford.

"Sam, bathroom? Seriously…" Claire tried to get his attention, but was ignored by Sam's reply to Dean.

"Err, the phone?"

"If I'd called would you have picked up?"

Claire had had enough, "Sam! Bathroom?"

Sam dragged his attention from Dean to face his sister, "Oh, up the stairs, to your left" he sighed, "And please be quiet, this may be news to you but some people actually choose to _sleep_ at 1o'clock in the morning".

"Alright, alright, I got it. Indoor voices only" Claire replied with a grin before heading upstairs, thankful to be getting away from that brotherly-yet-oh-so-annoying-alpha-male-control-contest.

While walking up the stairs in the dark, her keen eyes spotted the pictures lining the walls: Sam and a pretty blonde woman were in almost every picture, with many including other 20-something men and women all smiling like they'd just stepped out of a Hallmark commercial. Well, Sam wanted normal: he seemed to have gotten it. From the look of these pictures, he was just your average Joe college student. Claire faltered a little when she realised that this fact actually made her sad. It seemed she didn't know her baby brother anymore.

Halfway up the stairs she spotted the pretty blonde woman from the pictures peeking over the banister. Sammy's got a girlfriend? Claire watched, as blondie started towards the stairs before jumping and clutching her chest in shock as she nearly spotted Claire.

Claire winced at frightening the other girl, "Sorry if I scared you, just on my way to the bathroom"

"Oh, well err," She was still clutching her chest like it could fall off, but she seemed to be calming down much to Claire's relief, "sorry but who _are_ you?"

"I'm Claire. Sam's…"

"…sister. Oh, of course, I've heard a lot about you." Jessica said with a smile. Her first meeting with anyone from Sam's family was unexpected to say the least, but she couldn't deny she was more than a little curious. She could see the resemblance between Sam and his sister. They shared the same eyes. And height genes. It was weird to put a face to the name. Although Sam didn't talk about his family often, when he did it was almost always related to Claire, his brother Dean or both. Jess felt a little overwhelmed. That and the fact that it was 2o'clock in the morning resulted in it being a few minutes before Jess realised that she'd been staring.

"Oh I'm sorry, it's just I haven't ever met anyone from Sam's family before and…" turning red in embarrassment, but still not looking away.

"It's fine seriously. I mean I did just break into your house with my brother and nearly gave you a heart attack on the stairs, so a little post-shock staring? Not a problem" Claire gave the girl a smile and a once over. She seemed nice enough, and pretty, and Sam seemed to trust her enough to live with her… "So what's your name?"

"Oh sorry, I'm rude. My name's Jessica. Did you say you broke in with your brother? Dean's here?"

"Oh yeah, he's downstairs with Sam now. Why don't you go say hello?"

"Oh well, I don't want to interrupt…"

"They won't mind, and anyway they'll need someone to referee and I'm not down there so it might as well be you."

"Aright then. Bathroom's to the left by the way"

"Thanks" Claire waited as Jess headed down the stairs. She stayed on the landing just until she heard the sound of a light flicking on and Jessica's voice, before moving away. Now was her time to look around a little.

Turning to the right, she opened the first door to find what she assumed was Sam and Jessica's bedroom. It was nice enough: a bed, wardrobes, books, more books, books everywhere. Yep, Sammy's bedroom alright. Claire was touched to find a picture of their parents on the nightstand, and one of Dean and herself with the Impala on the dresser. Not seeing anything else worth snooping for, she turned to head out the room when she was startled by a small figure silhouetted in the doorway, and let out a gasp of shock. It was only then that she noticed that the figure was a little girl, no older than four years old, and that this little girl was looking at Claire in something akin to fear. Claire approached the girl slowly and knelt down in front of her.

"Hey there" she said softly, "what's your name?"

The girl simply stared at her, more out of curiosity than fear now, but she still stayed silent. Claire tried a different approach.

"What are you doing here? Are you Jessica's sister?" no response, "Her niece or something?"

Again her questions were met with silence. Maybe this kid was involved in one of Sam's weird school projects. Like the time in high school when he followed Dean around for a week, jotting down every single move he made in order to 'better understand the science of the human brain'. Or something like that anyway. Sam always _had_ gone above and beyond when it came to school, but even so, bringing a child home with you? That was a little far-fetched, even for Sammy. Unless…

"Hey are you like the upgrade of those eggs we had to look after for a week in high school?"

Silence. The kid cocked her head to one side, as if trying to figure Claire out. It was exactly how Sam used to look when he was about her age and he…. Oh no. Claire's mouth dropped open and she let out a little gasp as she realised the truth, of which was staring her in the face the whole time. Literally. This little girl was _so_ obviously Sam's. Her eyes, and her nose... Claire unconsciously reached out to touch the girl's face, but this didn't sit well with the kid, who started to cry. Very loudly. Claire cringed, making shushing noises and what she hoped were comforting hand gestures or anything to stop this girl crying. Thuds could be heard coming up the stairs…

~SN~SN~SN~SN~

Downstairs

Dean stopped in his ranting as the light flicked on, revealing a hot blonde in a _very_ small smurf shirt. Damn Sammy got lucky with this one.

"Jess, hey" Dean noticed Sam looked a little uncomfortable at introducing two separate parts of his family, "Dean this is my girlfriend Jessica"

"Your brother Dean right?" Jess looked to Sam for confirmation, but Dean cut in.

"I love the Smurfs" he gave Jess a wink as he continued to piss his brother off (well that's what big brothers are for right?), "You know I gotta tell ya, you are _completely_ out of my brothers' league".

"Just let me go and put something on" Silently pleased in the girl's loyalty to his little brother, but wanting to push Sam's buttons for one more minute, he answered while checking her out very obviously, "No I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously."

And it worked, as Sam let off a huff of annoyance that only years spent with him as a little brother would pick up on. Dean inwardly smiled: Sam hadn't changed a bit. Having finished annoying his little bro now, he decided a subject change was in order "Did you meet Claire? She was on her way to the bathroom".

"Oh yeah, she nearly gave me a heart attack but saved me from falling down the stairs to my death so she has my approval"

Dean smiled at that, and turned to Sam to see he also had a, albeit slightly bemused, smile on his face also. Dean opened his mouth to get down to business, but the words caught in his throat as he saw the smile slip from Sam's face before he was suddenly gone, running up the stairs as if something was on fire. It was only then that Dean noticed the cries. And not long after that, he and Jessica were stumbling up the stairs to find… a little girl sobbing her heart out on the hallway floor, and a bewildered Claire kneeling next to her.

Dean seemed paralysed with shock, unable to move as he processed what was going on.

"Dad-dy" the girl sobbed, her arms pointed upwards in an indication that she wanted to be picked up. Sam obliged by hoisting her onto his hip and rocking her gently as she laid her head on his shoulder. It was then that he turned to Claire.

"What happened?" he asked.

Ignoring his question, she burst straight in with her own "She's yours?"

"What?!?" Dean's voice could be heard behind them, just snapping out of his paralysis, "You had a kid?"

Sam sighed and cast an apologetic look to Jessica, who was standing close to Dean, silently observing the siblings' reactions. "Do you want me to take her?" Jess asked, but was met with a muffled whimper from Sam's arms, the little girls' fists clenched tightly in his T-shirt.

"No it's fine lets just… can we go downstairs?" he faced Claire and Dean to ask, "to talk about all this?"

Claire and Dean shared a look, before Dean nodded, and the two headed downstairs.

Jess stayed back with Sam, giving him a concerned look, "How much are you going to tell them?"

Sam's eyes met her own, giving her his answer without words.

"Well are you sure you're ready to talk about all this?" she asked, her hand reaching out to clasp his own in a gesture of support.

Sam's determined face stared back at her, "Yes. It's time we talked." He said, before he headed downstairs, his daughter in his arms and his girlfriend following close behind. It was going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Wow thank you all so much for the response I got to the first chapter, I really wasn't expecting it so thanks! The pressure's now on to give you something you like and I hope I did it with this chapter, (though I know it is annoyingly short – sorry!) Enjoy.**

They sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Awkwardly perched on a couch that was too comfortable for their moods right now, with only the sound of the second hand on a clock nearby to slice through the tension in the air at that moment.

Usually talkative and loud as hell, Claire sat staring at her hands thinking of babies and brothers and how easy it would have been for him to just pick up the damn phone.

Normally with a cockiness that could make anyone's eyes roll, Dean sat watching the second hand on the clock over the fireplace and asking himself how and why and what he would have done differently, if anything, had he known... what exactly? Yes, the siblings were sitting on their baby brother's couch at just gone 2.30am waiting for said brother to come down the stairs and explain exactly how, in only four years of absence, he had managed to get himself a live-in girlfriend, 3bedroomed house in the suburbs and a _child_ for Christ's sakes.

Already this trip was turning out to be more complicated than they'd thought: this was only supposed to be a pit-stop. So they could rescue Sam from some boring life that he had realised wasn't what he wanted after all, and go find dad. _That_ was what was supposed to happen. They should already be out the door by now.

Trained hunters hearing made sure they both heard the voice of their brother and the soft padding of footsteps down the stairs. Sure enough, their brother appeared, child still in his arms and live-in girlfriend following along behind. They seated themselves side by side on the couch opposite them and took a breath before; finally, the silence was broken.

"But you're hot!" Dean blurted out.

Silence. Again, as everyone turned to look at Dean with a look that just screamed "dude, what?!?"

"Erm thank you. I guess..." Jess said, deciding to break the atmosphere of confusion.

"Well what I meant was you look so…" Wrong approach, Dean decided as he spotted the look given to him by his brother, "I mean you don't look like you've had a… well not that you _look_ fat or anythi…"

The sharp intake of breath by his sister at the word 'fat' and the murderous look on Sam's face had Dean physically squirming in his seat in such a way that Jess felt she had better step in. Before Dean was killed by _both_ his siblings.

"I get it Dean, thanks. Well it's been nearly four years since Abby was born"

"Oh of course that's just…" Dean trailed off looking to the floor, but not before giving Jess a grateful look. Yep, he really liked this girl...

"Abby?" Claire finally spoke, directing her question at Sam.

"Abigail Mary Winchester"

Claire and Dean's eyes travelled towards the girl, _Abby_, and back up to Sam. Sam couldn't help but notice the flash of pain that passed Dean's face at the sound of his mother's name, and the uncharacteristic glisten in Claire's eyes as she looked in awe at her niece. A look of understanding met both Winchesters as Sam also reflected on his mother.

For Jessica however, this was turning out to be an oddly silent conversation, so she decided to give the siblings some breathing room. Give them some space to start actually _talking_ in.

"Sam, is she asleep?" Sam's eyes met hers and he gave her a soft nod, not wanting to jostle the precious bundle in his arms. At this Jess stood, holding her hands out for her sleeping child and Sam obliged, passing her gently to her mother, "I'll just take her up" Jess said softly, before leaving the room and padding upstairs.

The three Winchesters watched her go with a mixture of love, shock and appreciation (in Deans case especially), before turning to face each other again.

"Sam, why didn't you call?" Claire cut to the chase immediately.

Sam sighed, closing his eyes momentarily before answering, "It's been a pretty hectic few years".

"Yeah Sam, y_ears_. You could've at least called man; I mean she's, what? Three? Four?" Dean cut in.

"Three. Her birthday's in Novemeber."

"Well that's still _three years_ you could've called us in Sam. Three_ ye_ars. What, are you telling me you're hot-shot college life is _so_ hectic that you haven't had a spare moment to ring and say 'oh yeah by the way I've had a kid' in _three years_?!"

"Look, I know you're upset and you have a right to be, but I did what was best for all of us".

"Best for who? You, right. You didn't want us coming in ruining this nice little set-up you've got going on? Didn't want us sticking our noses into your perfect new life?" Dean was angry now, but Sam just looked exhausted... and lost.

"You know that's not true." He replied softly.

"Do I? 'Cos you know, yesterday I thought my little brother having a daughter, wasn't true" Sam looked away, "that you not caring about this family, wasn't true. I was wrong there though wasn't I"

"Dean, look I should've called you. You too Claire I… should've trusted that you would care about this."

"Then why didn't you" Claire spoke softly.

"Because…" Sam sighed, "Because I believed him."

Somehow she knew that the answer to her question would be an unwelcome one, but Claire asked it anyway: "Who?"

Sam knew this wouldn't go over well, but this was his time to come clean, and Claire and Dean, his brother and sister, deserved the truth.

Sam met his sibling's eyes before speaking:

"Dad"


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys, this may sound lame but I'm truly so excited I got up to 10 reviews :] x that's 10 people who took the time to tell me what they thought and I am so so grateful for that – thanks guys! Hope I delivered with this chapter, but this one's really just to end 'a day' I suppose you could say - to spread out the action for the drama to come **

**Now I'm rambling, somebody shut me up ;) on with the chapter! X**

"Dad?" Dean asked in a low voice, "Dad knew about this?"

Truth be known, at this moment Dean was pissed. I mean, he and Claire had practically raised Sam, and after the way their dad had reacted when he'd left for Stanford… well suffice to say Dean had been pretty sure John would've been the _last_ to know.

Sam understood their frustrations and tried to explain, "I didn't mean him to. After the way I left… well let's just say I was nervous enough about talking to you guys, let alone dad," Sam paused slightly before continuing, "I rang _your_ phone Dean, to tell you that Jess was pregnant. You had left it in the motel, gone out interviewing witnesses with Claire or something, and Dad picked up. At first I was just gonna ask him to tell you I'd called and hang up, but" Sam sighed, "he's still my dad. And he wasn't biting my head off at that moment, so I told him".

"How did he… what did he say?" Claire asked, knowing if their father's reaction to Sam going to college was anything to go by, he would've been pissed. Sure enough:

"He wasn't pleased, told me I'd ruined my life, asked how I could've been so careless… it was great, he was my father again, you know," at his siblings' confused looks, Sam tried to explain, "I mean, yeah I didn't agree that I'd ruined my life, but that's what dad and I do, right? We fight, we disagree with one another. So as weird as it sounds, it was nice to have him actually _talking_ to me again, even if what he was saying was rubbish".

Dean and Claire took in this information, mulling it over. It was true; Sam and their dad had fought more than the rest of them put together. It did make sense in a weird sort of way. "Ok so we've established how dad knew. Still doesn't explain why you didn't tell us"

"Before I hung up dad offered to tell you guys, he said it would be best coming from him. He also said you two were still mad at me for leaving, so I agreed. I rang back the day after and he told me how you didn't want to know, that you were disappointed, you didn't even want to talk to me…"

"Sam you know that's not true right? We didn't know, he never told us"

"Yeah I kinda figured he'd lied by your reactions to Abby today. I'm sorry I believed him, I should've trusted that you two wouldn't turn your back on me"

The siblings all shared a look, understanding finally having fought its way through, and communicated without words what the other needed to hear: I'll be here, I want you in my life, you're family.

Sam felt an inner relief at having explained himself enough that his siblings weren't angry anymore, but found himself emotionally exhausted from just this explanation which, unknown to Dean and Claire, was only the half of it. The rest would have to wait until he'd recharged at least 3hours sleep, he decided.

"Aright so, it's late or… well early. But you're welcome to stay" Claire caught the note of hope in Sam's voice as he said this and nodded, glad at the chance to spend more time with her brother. Sam sent her a grateful look and focused his attention on Dean, "we have a guest room. Or you…"

The corner of Dean's mouth curled in a slight smile, before cutting Sam off, "I'll take the couch, Claire can have the room," Smiles all round while Dean stood up, walking towards into the hallway before turning back slightly, "hey Sammy you helping me with our bags or what?"

"You're a jerk" Sam said, following him out of the room with a smile.

"Bitch" Dean said over his shoulder, opening the front door and pausing for Sam to catch up.

"Dude you're both losers, now get my stuff!" Claire's speech was met with a laugh from Sam that the siblings hadn't heard for a long time. Four years in fact. Their eyes met before Dean and Sam disappeared out the front door. Strange how they'd fallen back into their routine. As if they'd been apart for a week at most.

As the boys were out at the Impala getting the bags, Claire lay on the couch, suddenly feeling more comfortable than she could be anywhere else. They had their Sammy back, and this time was going to be different. It was this thought that she fell asleep to, minutes later to be covered by a blanket by her brothers, before they left to their own beds. And, finally, there was true silence in the youngest Winchester's house.

**More surprises to come but for now I hope it's what you all wanted.**

**Thanks! x**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey guys, wanted to say thanks again for the reviews: now up to 16!**

**Hope you enjoy.**

The first thing she became aware of was how soft and comfortable the motel bed was. Usually stained sheets and lumpy mattresses were the norm for Dean and herself, so they must've struck gold with this one. Taking advantage of this gift she'd been given, Claire didn't open her eyes; content to stay in a post-sleep daze for a while longer. After all, how often do motels like this come along?

This explanation for the sense of comfort she felt right now made sense to her half-asleep mind only up until the second thing she became aware of: mumbled voices. Now, Dean was usually pretty good about girls: either going back to their place or at least giving Claire fair warning the night before so she could sleep in the car. She was his little sister after all, and although now 26 he was still as overprotective of her as he was when she was 15. That being said, to wake up to more than just the snores of her brother and the usual rush of the main road just outside their door, was unusual. But the more she listened, the more she came to realise that Dean's voice was slightly deeper and harsher sounding than the sounds reaching her right now, and the girl's voice she could hear was, unusually enough, not the giggly high-pitched squeal of the girls Dean usually chose.

Listening harder, Claire even managed to pick up a few words that most definitely wouldn't be used by either Dean or the bimbo he'd come home with, on the morning after the night before.

"Meeting…important…go we'll be fine" 'Dean' said in an uncharacteristically reassuring way.

"…sure? I…stay…maybe could help" and the bimbo's voice was soft, not high pitched as it usually would be.

It was at this moment that Claire knew she needed to wake up. Fast.

Because either 1) she'd been kidnapped and brought to an amazingly comfortable bed by complete strangers who spend too much time talking in a 'lets-hug' way and less time keeping an eye on their hostage.

Or 2) Dean had been possessed by some demon who brought home really nice sounding girls and they were planning to turn her into a 'lets-hug'-loving-kind-sounding minion in which to take over the world with smiles and rainbow dust.

Either way would mean hugging, of which would make her a little, well actually a _lot_ nauseas.

Opening her eyes with trepidation, she was met with another set of eyes approximately 4cm from her own. In fact, if she moved even slightly forward Claire was certain their noses would touch so she moved back, until the fuzzy picture she had in front of her came into focus. Brown expressive eyes much like her brothers stared back at her… And it all came flooding back. Breaking into Sam's house and being tackled and meeting blondie and snooping around and the little girl. _Abby_.

The pair stayed frozen for a while, both transfixed on the other's face and mulling over their own thoughts on the other. Then the bubble they were in was broken as a sound from just behind the couch that she was on (it suddenly registered that it wasn't the motel direct from heaven but her brother's living room she was sleeping in. And actually, that did make more sense: Dean had crappy taste in motels).

"Abby come away from there, Claire's still asleep" at the sound of Sam's voice, Abby broke eye contact with her Aunt, looking up to her father before looking to her shoes guiltily and moving towards her parents and out of Claire's eyesight.

Now that she was awake properly, Claire could hear her little brother and blondie… Wait a second, what was her name? It wouldn't do to just keep calling her blondie… damn, always was bad at names. Erm… well Dean will know, but for now stealthy listening is required. Hopefully stealthier than last night, when snooping around had ended up with the dramatic entrance into their lives of a certain 3year old who was definitely gifted in the art of screaming-her-head-off. So stealthy listening…

"Well I can stay if you want some support" that was Blondie.

"They're my family if anyone knows how to deal with them it's me"

"I don't mean that and you know it" silence, Claire could practically hear Sam's brain working.

"I'll tell them," Pause "I _will_."

"I believe you'll tell them baby, I just… it's only been 2months, are you sure you don't want some support?"

Silence again. And now Claire was intrigued. There was something that Sam had to say, something that had happened 2months ago that had Sam so he couldn't talk about it. Or at least blondie thought would be hard for him to talk about. If Claire knew her little brother like she thought she did, she knew that for something to have this affect on him, it had to be important.

"I'm fine. I've dealt with it… I'm fine"

Claire peeked her head over the edge of the couch to witness a moment where no words were spoken, and Blondie looked at Sam like she _knew_ he was lying. Claire thought only she could tell when he was lying.

"Sam…"

"Jess…"

"Jess! That's her…" Claire quietly exclaimed, before ducking back down on the couch and feigning sleep as Sam looked her way.

Once she was sure he wasn't looking towards the couch any more, although almost positive that he'd heard her, she peeked her head over again to watch the exchange.

"You're gonna be late" Sam said softly, and Jess sighed before replying.

"Ok. I'll see you later"

"Wait, Abby!" Sam called his daughter, who had moved back into the living room without Claire's notice and was promptly sitting on the floor, bored by adult conversations. At her father's call she jumped up and ran them, and Sam promptly hoisted her onto his hip.

"Wish mommy luck now, she's got an important meeting today"

Abby reached over to give her mom a hug and a kiss on the cheek "lucks lucks lucks" she said.

"Thank you baby" Jess replied before turning back to Sam again, "I'll see you later babe" before giving him a kiss and turning out the door.

Claire watched as her brother stood at the open door with a child on his hip and had Abby wave as the sound of a car driving away reached her ears. It still fascinated her: while Dean and herself had had Sam to look after and get experience with children with, Sam had had no younger siblings to look out for. It was strange to see Sam so carefully looking after a child when that was always her job for her little brother. But Sam had changed, he wasn't a hunter anymore, he was a father.

Sam closed the door, Abby still on his hip and walked into the living room.

"You can stop pretending to sleep now Claire" he said as he walked through a door on the opposite side of the room, not turning back.

Claire sat up, a little stunned. Ok so maybe he wasn't a hunter anymore, but the instincts were still there. It was still Sam, just… grown up. Yes, that's the word for it, Sam had grown up. So had they all.

**Again, I know, not much actual action and you don't really **_**learn**_** any more, but you will in the next chapter!**

**See you soon x x**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey everyone! Thank you all so so so much for all my reviews, I'm now up to 23!**

**Oh, and I just found out what a beta was so I thought I'd let you guys know ('cos everyone else seems to be doing it anyway) that I don't have one so all mistakes are mine. **

**Enjoy :] x **

When they'd pulled up outside their brother's house the night before, Claire had been the first to admit that by the looks of things, Sam had it made big. But when it's 2o'clock in the morning and you've just found out your little brother has a three year old daughter, thoughts of how nice the wood flooring is kinda fly out the window. In daylight however, with a good night's sleep behind her and having nothing else to do except sit on a breakfast stool in the kitchen and watch her brother make pancakes, Claire had some time to appreciate such things. Like how shiny the kitchen was… and how Sam was really _good_ at handling little Abby. Claire's memories of Sam at the age of three-going-on-four were of a little boy who _never_ stopped asking questions. Some of them were funny to her 7year old self, and some of which made her nine year old brother, and their father alike, cringe and gain a painful look in their eyes. Those times ended up being more frequent as Sam realised he was continually not getting an answer to his questions.

"Do we have a mom?" was often answered with a sharp intake of breath from Dean and a haunted looking-into-thin-air action from their dad.

Claire, having only been three years old when their mom had died, didn't remember her too well herself. What she did remember was blonde hair and the smell of lilacs and a soft voice… and the heat and the smoke and the flames of that night. And running out the burning house, holding the hem of Dean's sleep top as he held Sam in his arms.

Dean obviously remembered their mom, and therefore also knew the difference of their lives, before and after that night. He knew that he had a better life once, and truly believed that if their mom was here he would have that life back. He missed her terribly, and it was that heartache that caused him to ignore Sam's questions. Their father was a different story: you knew never to mention mom. Well, unless you _wanted_ him to brood in silence for the days following. So that left it up to Claire to answer Sam's incessant questions. And she didn't always have the best of answers.

"Of course we have a mom Sammy, everyone does" she had replied.

"Well where is she?"

"She's…"

And this was where the problem arose, for it was never truly explained to Claire _where_ her mother was, just that she was gone. She'd heard the word 'death' batted around between the two oldest Winchesters for years, but usually in the context of "make sure that thing's really dead Dean, we don't want a repeat of that hunt back in Missouri".

So to answer Sam's question, Claire fell back on the one thing she'd learnt in school: "Mommy's in heaven. She's an angel"

This always made Dena flinch and their father close his eyes momentarily, but it was a good enough answer for Sam, who simply went back to play with his toy truck on the floor, oblivious to the tense atmosphere in the room, or the guilty look on his sisters' face…

Snapping back into the here and now, Claire smiled, as Abby _tried_ (but failed) to whisper.

"Daddy who is that lady?"

Just like her dad, always asking questions.

"She's your Aunt Claire" Sam replied casually.

"But, but daddy, she doesn't look like in the picture"

"That's because that picture was taken when Claire was 12…"

"What picture?" Claire chipped in suddenly. Sam turned away from his daughter's questioning eyes to look at his sister before reaching in his pocket and pulling out his wallet. Opening it, he sifted through picture upon picture of Abby and Jess before, right at the back, he pulled out a photo that was crumpled and faded, and crushed at the corners, before passing it to Claire. She recognised it immediately.

_The four of them, Sam Dean Claire and their Dad, had been driving through mountainous roads when they had come across a lookout point. There was a place to park your car and a little gift shop and a view across the whole valley. They had stopped and had a rare family moment, when a 9year old Sam had spotted some disposable cameras for $5 each. He had begged and begged until their dad had bought him one, and spent a full 15minutes taking pictures of everything around them, while their dad kept an eye on him and Claire and Dean looked out over the valley. It was the last picture left, and Sam had asked an old couple visiting the viewpoint if they would take a picture of his family. Dean had resisted at first (being 13 he was too old for this sort of thing), but Sam had flashed his puppy-dog eyes at him and he'd relented under one condition: that the Impala be in the picture too. Dean, although being too young to drive, was already obsessed with vintage cars and the Impala, to him, was the ultimate car. It also helped that they had practically grown up in the thing, but the Impala was Dean's absolute favourite thing on the planet. Sam agreed, they'd all huddled together in front of the car, even their dad, and smiled like idiots as the flash went. They'd gotten the pictures developed in the next town and that night Sam had stuck them up in every motel they stayed in. But as the years went on there seemed to be less and less up on the wall: moving from motel to motel at a moments notice meant you sometimes ended up leaving things behind. In the end it was only that one of all of us in front of the Impala that was stuck up, then suddenly that one was gone from the wall too. Claire had always thought he'd lost that one like all the others. _

Sam watched as Claire took the picture and stared at it. He could practically hear her brain working as she remembered that day. She was silent a little longer before she spoke: "Wow," she said, not taking her eyes off it.

"You remember?" Sam asked her. She simply nodded, mute. Sam smiled.

It was then that Abby decided she'd had enough – grown ups were boring. "Daddy, daddy!" pulling on her fathers' leg to get his attention. He looked down at her and she raised her arms, he obliged by picking her up on his hip and she reached forward to point at the picture still in Claire's grasp.

"Auntie Cl-hair, did... did you know that _that_," she poked the picture with a pudgy finger,"_That's_ my daddy"

Claire replied easily enough, slipping back into her 'child-friendly' voice that she had perfected all those years ago with Sammy.

"_Really_? Are you sure, it doesn't look like him"

Sam smiled at their interaction before passing Abby over to sit on the seat next to Claire's, and walking back over to the stove, all the while listening to their conversation.

Abby laughed and nodded enthusiastically, "Yes! Yes! I'm s-ear-ee-oose" she spelled out the word slowly.

"Serious?" Claire asked, and was answered by Abby nodding again,"That's a big word, where'd you learn that one?"

"Mommy says daddy is too s-ear-ee-oose, and that, that he needs to be more fun."

Sam turned away from the counter top to look at his daughter, and Claire burst out laughing from the look on his face.

"Oh mommy said that did she?" he asked

Abby answered honestly, "Yes. And she said it was you who took the lollies out the lollies jar. She said you ate them all." Sam's face truly was priceless; Claire s-ear-ee-oose-ly couldn't stop laughing.

"Oh, shut up Claire" Sam grumbled,

"I see what you mean Abby, your dad _is_ a little boring isn't he" Claire said, trying to keep a straight face but failing miserably.

Abby laughed too, a high pitched squeal that echoed through the whole house.

And this squeal was what woke the oldest of all the Winchester siblings from his sleep upstairs. Dean looked around the room filled with sunlight and registered the sound of his sister's uncontrollable laughter from downstairs. …And also, what he presumed, was his _niece_. Dean could say, without a doubt, that when driving into Paulo Alto the night before on his way to Sammy's house that him having a three year old _niece_ was the _last _thing he was expecting.

Just wow.

Another squeal of laughter echoed round the house, and Dean, never one to be out of the loop, decided to investigate.

He made his way along the landing and down the stairs, into the living room, noticing the crumpled blankets on the couch. When Sam and himself had come back in from getting the bags the night before, Claire had already fallen asleep on the couch (well who wouldn't, they'd been driving all night after all, and those couches were _comfortable_). The brothers had covered her with a blanket before retreating upstairs. Before leaving for his own bedroom, Sam had set Dean up in the guest room (which Dean had noted was close enough to the stairs that he could escape that way if needed, but also had a window big enough that he could make a quick getaway that way also). That sort of thinking had been drilled into them all by their dad since he'd started hunting, and no matter how hard Dean tried… well, old habits die hard.

As he padded softly through the living room to the door on the opposite side where the laughter was coming from, Dean noticed all the colouring books and kids toys and Barbie dolls strewn around the place in a semi-organised state that just _screamed_ that a little girl of some sort lived here. Yeah Dean called himself a hunter, but had he really looked over all these so _obvious_ signs last night? That's embarrassing…

Pushing the door open to the kitchen, Dean was met with _the_ biggest hallmark-meets-chic-flick moment he had ever seen. Sam was making pancakes (cooking? …_Really_?), Claire was sitting on a breakfast stool laughing so much she looked like she might just explode a little bit, and his nice was standing up on the granite counter tops… Dean presumed saying… well, _something_, but he honestly had no idea what.

Honestly, having _Sammy_ as her father she should be fluent in 6 languages and reading freaking _Shakespeare_ by now. But by the looks of things she couldn't even speak English.

It was then that Sam turned (Dean groaned at the sight of his 23 year old brother with flour in his hair and… wait, was that an _apron?!_), and said in a voice much too joyous for this time in the morning, "Morning Dean. Pancakes?"

Dean shook his head a little in disbelief, before sliding into a stool across the counter-top from Claire.

"Aww Dean, why so serious?" Claire asked with a smile as…

"S-ear-ee-ooooooooooose!" Abby exclaimed, to be met by peals of laughter from Claire that actually caused Dean to move back a little. Don't want to be splattered by exploded-Claire-bits after all…

"Dee!" Abby yelled, looking turning to look at her Uncle.

"err… what?" Dean looked at Sam for help.

"She's saying your name Dean" Sam said with a smirk.

"Dee! Dee! Look!" Abby exclaimed, shoving a crumpled picture under his nose. He recognised the picture and was about the slip into memory lane when a pudgy finger poked 9year old Sam's face.

"That's my daddy, it is. It is." She said proudly. Dean looked up at Claire, bewildered.

Abby continued: "And that's Auntie Cl-hair!" a 12year old Claire got a poke in the stomach.

"yeah… where're you going with this kid?"

"And that's Pala! Pala!!" Abby was practically jumping she was so excited.

"Err…what?" dean was a little overwhelmed. It's been years since he'd had to speak child-gibberish. And, I mean seriously, didn't this kid have an off button?

"Pala! I wood like to see your Pala un-cool Dee!"

And that set Claire off again. She was clutching her sides and her face was going red, Sam was chuckling and shaking his head. Claire was gasping, but still managed to get enough breath to say "Un-cool Dee! Classic…"

Abby seemed to realise that she was getting nowhere, so turned to her father for help.

"Daddy! Pala peese"

"Alright baby, alright." He replied, before turning towards his brother, "Dean, Abby's a big fan of the Impala, can she see it please?"

"Peese Un-cool Dee." Abby said to back up her point which, of course, had Claire laughing again.

Dean however, saw an opportunity:

"Sure you can see it… as long as you never call me un-cool Dean again. We got a deal?"

Abby nodded, completely serious, but Claire shook her head.

"Aww Dean you ruin all the fun"

"Shut up Cl-hair" Dean replied, but smirked.

The three stayed in a blissful silence of nothing but the odd chuckle and smile… before Abby's tugging on Dean's arm became too much and the three headed outside together, with Abby chanting all the way:

"Pala! Pala! Pala! Pala…"

**Alright, so that's all I've got for you for now. Just a little bit of fluff between the Winchesters – we need a balance after all.**

**I apologise if Abby's speech is irritating, the repetition of words etc. is intentional, but I've found that it's really hard to write in a way that a three/four year old would actually speak (I'm using my sister as inspiration here as she's that age and speaks a lot like that).**

**I dunno if it worked but let me know what you thought anyway.**

**See ya soon guys! x x x**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey guys! Sorry it's been ages but, as I've already explained to a few of you (emailing me to ask "dude where's the next chapter?!" lol), I will be going on holiday somewhere far away on Thursday, meaning after Thursday I won't be able to write or update for atleast three weeks. (Sucks, I know, sorry guys) **

**BUT:**** the last week or so, I've been writing practically non-stop (ok I lie I went out a lot last week, but I've written the next few chapters anyway) so I will have a few BIG chapters to put up before I go away, which will **_**hopefully**_** keep you going until I get back. **

**Or that's the plan anyway :] x**

**So here's the next chapter - will you find out Sam's secret?**

**Enjoy, love ya x x x**

Walking in out of the midday sun after 3_hours_ of running around after a four year old girl, the Winchester siblings were beat. However finally having been able to drag Abby away from the car didn't mean that they got to talk about anything _but_ the Impala. In _great _detail.

Abigail Winchester was talking a mile a minute: "Daddy, daddy did you see Dee's music? Did you see it? They was inside black squareys, and they..."

"Woah woah woah, let's get one thing straight here midget: they're _cassette tapes_. It's authentic."

Abby, who was walking in front of the other three, halted at the doorway from the kitchen into the living room, and turned fully to face the adults behind her.

"Cass-er-tapes?" she scrunched her forehead in confusion before turning to Sam, "daddy…"

Sam gave her a small nudge forward, which she accepted, before replying: "Like CDs but older. Much _much_ older" Sam gave her sister a wink and she cracked up at the look on Dean's face.

"Nice bitchface Dean"

"Bit-ch…"

Sam halted suddenly (as did his siblings) and looked, horrified, at his innocent daughters words before leaning down to her level, "No, _no_ Abby that's a bad word you mustn't say that"

"Aunty Cl-hair did and you didn't tell her off"

Sam sighed and picked Abby up onto his hip before sighing yet again.

"Well Aunty _Claire_ was wrong to say it in the first place", Sam noticed his daughter's cheeky grin so carried on, "You are not to say that word Abigail, I'm serious."

Dean was a little taken aback at seeing the signature Winchester-mischief gleam come into his niece's eyes, as she looked at her uncle before she spoke again.

"Bit-ch bit-ch bit-ch... Ah daddy!" Her swearing was cut off when Sam swung her into the air before catching her above his head.

"Thanks a lot Claire" he said, but with a twinkle in his eye all the same, before chucking Abby up again, catching her, and swinging her round till she was perched on his hip again, and addressed his daughter who was laughing loudly, "Don't say that word in front of mommy and we'll be cool, alright Abby?"

"Ok daddy, it'll be a sea-cret"

Sam smiled back at his daughter before checking his watch, "It's almost midday baby, go on and get ready for lunch now"

He placed Abby on the ground and the three Winchesters watched as the young girl ran out the room and up the stairs with a series of skips and jumps.

Sam, Dean and Claire collapsed on the couches, exhausted by the four year olds enthusiasm.

Dean broke the silence; clearing his throat before speaking "she is really something Sammy."

"Yep, she's a Winchester alright" Claire agreed, eyes still closed in exhaustion.

Sam looked at his siblings in amusement, but was himself spread out on the couch, so tired it wasn't even funny. He closed his own eyes before replying:

"Yeah well, you should've seen them when they were babies. You think she's tiring now, at least I get a whole nights sleep…"

Claire picked her head up and looked at her brother at his odd wording, even more sure now that there was something he wasn't telling them. Looking towards her older brother, she saw that Dean had picked up on something too – he too was sitting up, fully alert now, and gave Claire a look that screamed "yeah I know he's hiding something, but not for long…"

Sam, with his eyes closed, hadn't picked up on this silent agreement between his siblings and carried on, "Jess and I would be up half the night with them. You could've warned me what hard work kids were before I left you know" he said with a smile and a jokey tone, lifting his head and opening his eyes to look at his siblings. To find them looking back at him with a look that was both suspicious and analytical.

"Hey, what?" he asked.

Dean stared him straight in the eye to reply, "Who're you talking about Sam?"

At Sam's puzzled look, Claire took over, talking in a softer voice than her straight-to-the-point older brother, "You keep saying 'they'. When _they_ were babies, up all night with _them_" she paused as a flash of raw emotion could be seen to flicker across Sam's face. She turned to Dean, who nodded to say that he'd seen it too, before he cut to the chase, "What's going on Sammy?"

"That's… oh god, I…" elbows on knees, he buried his head in his hands, to the shock of his older siblings.

"Sam?" Claire asked softly, before moving to sit next to him, concern on her face as her usually coherent baby brother stumbled on his words. Dean too moved off the couch and came to crouch on his knees in front of Sam.

"Sam what is it?" he asked, a slight hint of an order in the question (curtsey of John Winchester).

"I… Abby isn't an only child" Sam said from behind his hands, "she has a twin brother."

Claire brought a hand to rub Sam's back comfortingly as she and Dean made eye contact. "Okay…"

Sam brought his head out of his hands to stare at his brother before explaining: "she _had_ a twin brother".

Sudden realisation hit both Winchesters with the force of a semi, and as Sam made eye contact with his brother for the first time since this confession, Dean noticed the sharp hint of new tears in his baby brothers' eyes. He could relate: Dean, more than any of his siblings, remembered their mother and therefore suffered from the grief the most. It was one of the reasons he was as close to his dad as he was: they both understood true grief, not simply the loss of a mother figure as both Sam and Claire had. But from the look on Sam's face, Dean just knew that Sam was still suffering. And would continue to suffer. For grief like that you didn't _ever_ 'get over'.

You just learnt to hide it better.

**Alright so that's all for now.**

**A weird place to end this chapter? Probably, but I wanted to end on a bit of an 'emotional reunion' between Sam and Dean, because I feel like so far in this story the time apart hasn't been as easily healed with those two as it has between Sam and Claire.**

**I'm not gonna lie, I'm VERY nervous about this chapter. If you hate it let me know cos I'm not sure myself lol x**

**More of Sam's 'secret-which-is-not-really-a-secret-any-more' in the next chapter, along with Abby's and Jess's POVs of what has occurred within the past year. **


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey guys! So the structure's very slightly different (by the end of the chapter I was back to my old ways but, well, one part's a bit different at any rate – sorry!) in this chapter - you may notice, you may not, but either way the full story as to **_**why**_** it's different is at the bottom. I'm sorry if you hate it, happy if you like it, equally as happy if you honestly don't care about that sort of thing and just want the plot :] lol **

**Any and all mistakes (of which there will probably be many – it's a long chapter this one), cheesy lines and bits that just make you go "oh dear what is she **_**doing**_**?!" are mine, but all the best bits (Sam, Dean, the Impala etc) all belong to Kripke. Yep I really got the short end of the stick ;) x**

**First POV is Sam's and he's having a bit of a breakdown (poor Sam), then it moves on from there just so you know.**

**Last thing, wanted to say again thanks for the reviews and hope you enjoy it guys x x x**

It was strange how fast you can be overwhelmed. How fast the tone of conversation can change from jokey to serious. So fast in fact, that sometimes once you catch up it weighs you down, pulls you under, and for a second or two you simply can't breathe.

One minute, he was reminiscing on past times – anecdotes about bedtimes and his two little babies. Unconsciously sifting through the past four years without a care in the world for the first time since… that day.

Then Claire had brought to his attention exactly _what_ he was saying, and he had remembered that it would never be like that again.

This realisation had crashed down on him with the weight of… the damn truck that caused all this. And suddenly it wasn't an easy conversation any more: suddenly it was a confession. Suddenly… he was thrust back into _that_ time. After a silent, sudden and forced trip down memory lane, Sam finally caught up and came back into the here and now.

The first thing he noticed was that he was acting like a mad person: head in his hands, shaking and shivering, mumbling the painful truth to his siblings. And then came the raw realisation that he was speaking in present tense: "she _has_ a twin brother".

Lifting his head to look straight in he eyes of his older brother: Dean would understand, "She _had_ a twin brother"

The haunted look in his big brothers' eyes at this sentence reminded Sam a lot of his father, and his girlfriend, and himself. This was the first time he'd admitted his son's death. But he wasn't ready, it was _too soon_.

Oh god, oh god, no, no, no, NO, it wasn't fair, he was so little, just a baby, his little boy, his baby boy… Somewhere within these ramblings Sam became aware that he wasn't just saying them in his head. But he felt extremely disconnected – he could _hear_ himself during this breakdown but couldn't seem to control his own body, couldn't control the continual spew of words come out his mouth. He was aware that the hand holding his own was his brother (and vaguely asked himself why when he knew Dean hated chic-flick moments), but couldn't seem to pull away. He had his head back in his hands, and was shocked to feel a slight wetness on his cheeks. But it wasn't his, he hadn't cried for his baby yet, it was his sister. She was rubbing his back, holding him in her arms and rocking them both.

He was aware of all of this, but couldn't seem to stop it. He couldn't seem to stop muttering "no, no, no, no, no…"

That is until, "Daddy?"

And just like that he snapped out of it: the words stopped, and he had control of his body once again. Picking his head out of his hands, he found his brothers' concerned gaze and his sister's tears at her baby brothers' breakdown. But sought out the big brown eyes of his daughter standing across the room at the foot of the stairs.

"Daddy?" she asked again, and this simple question coming from his only daughter had Sam jumping off the couch and at her side within seconds. Scooping her into his arms, Sam held her close: one hand on her back and one in her hair as he rocked them.

~SPN~SPN~SPN~

Dean's POV

Sam always had been a very emotional person; one of the reasons he hadn't gotten along very well with hunting. He had always _sympathised_ with the ghosts they ganked or the monsters they killed, "They were people once Dean", he would say, but Dean never understood it. To him there was only black and white, good and bad, his little brother and sister and some wendigo or spirit or freaking marshmallow-man that meant them harm. And with this reasoning, Dean was always confident that what they did on a day to day basis was right. _They_ were the good guys.

But Sam was always different, always thinking outside the box, and never one to hide his emotions in front of his big brother and sister. Because of this, Dean had been through quite a few sad situations with Sam: he knew exactly what to say and how to react and more importantly, how _Sam_ would react. Dean and Claire were always _prepared_. Like, if their dad said something hurtful and really _stupid_, Sam would go all silent and broody. But if Sam had gotten a bad mark on a test he wouldn't look up from his shoes. And the worst being the first time Sam saw something die (a werewolf that Dean himself had shot in the heart), and Sam had stood there and silently cried as he watched the once-wolf-man turn back to a human and gasp his final breaths.

But today, Dean was anything _but_ prepared for how Sam had reacted. The rambling had certainly caught him and Claire off guard – Claire was _crying_ for Christ's sake. Claire hardly ever cried. But the way Sam was acting, the words he was saying… Dean could tell Claire was scared for their brother. So was he.

Then as quick as it had started, the emotional explosion and mental breakdown just suddenly stopped at the soft sound of Dean's three year old niece.

And suddenly Sam wasn't sitting next to them anymore: he was over the other side of the room hugging his daughter. Peeking over Sam's shoulder as he rocked her, Abby gave her Aunt and Uncle a knowing look that was filled with such sadness for a three year old. After a few silent minutes of Abby allowing herself to be hugged and rocked for her fathers' sake, she leant back to look at her father in the face with a serious expression that looked out of place on her small face. Sam gave his daughter a watery smile before placing her on the ground and walking out to the kitchen, mumbling something about lunch.

Silence as Abby walked into the sitting room, Claire sat still on the couch Dean kneeling on the floor in front of it, both searching for her reaction now.

But Abby simply hopped up on the couch next to Claire, who instantly put an arm around her niece. Sitting in silence all mulling over their own thoughts, the three Winchesters sat together trying not to listen to the stifled sobs and harsh breathing from beyond the kitchen door.

"Daddy's sad" Abby broke the silence, looking up at her Aunt.

"Your dad's fine Abby" Claire said, trying to reassure her, but Abby continued.

"Mommy says it's ok to be sad, but Daddy tries not to be for Mommy and me" the three year old looked at Dean before carrying on, "Daddy only gets sad if you talk about Scotty"

This made Dean nod and Claire ask softly, "Scotty?"

Abby smiled widely, "The best big brother ever. Me and Scotty was t-wins," she stated proudly, "but you can't talk about Scotty now. That's bad, you will make Daddy sad. You talk about Scotty to Mommy but not to Daddy"

"Ok we'll keep that in mind midge…" Dean was cut off by the front door opening and Jess walking in wearing a skirt suit and a wide smile.

"Mommy!" Abby ran to her mother who lifted her onto her hip.

"Hey baby have you been behaving yourself?" Jessica asked, closing the front door and walking into the living room, nodding to Dean and Claire on the couches.

"I saw Pala and played with Un-cool Dee!" Abby yelled, excited by her mother's return and completely having forgotten the serious tone of the conversation before.

"Really, well did you say thank you to uncle Dean?" Jess asked, plonking herself down onto the couch opposite the siblings and placing her daughter on the floor.

"Yes mommy, yes!" Abby jumped twice with renewed energy.

Jess smiled at her daughter before turning to meet Dean's gaze and Claire's smile at the relaxed mother-daughter communication.

"Hey, how're you doing?" Jess asked, kicking her shoes off.

"Great we're great" "Yes, just… erm… yeah, great"

Dean and Claire replied at the same time.

"Where's Sam?" Jess asked. Dean gave her a piercing look, communicating without words, and Claire looked guiltily toward the kitchen door before looking at her shoes. At the atmosphere change Jess' smile dropped.

"Oh dear, erm Abby why don't you go play for a while, ok baby?" Jess asked.

"Ok Mommy" Abby skipped away and Jess turned back to Dean and Claire, leaning forward to ask her next question.

"What happened?" her eyes shone with concern, and the siblings were hit with how well Jess seemed to know their brother, "Did he tell you about…"

"Yeah, that Abby had a twin brother" Dean jumped in, and Jess nodded.

"Scott Adam Winchester. Adam after my brother, he died the year I met Sam. Sam really helped me through that loss…" she trailed off.

"I'm sorry" Claire said, looking Jessica right in the eye "About Scott and Adam"

"Thank you."

Silence again, which Dean broke.

"Well Abby seems to remember her brother" he said, to which Jess nodded, "so how long ago did he die?" Jess looked sharply at her brother-in-law.

"Sam didn't tell you?"

"All he said was that Abby had a twin brother" Claire explained.

"Oh, well it's been nearly a year since the accident, it was 9months ago."

"What exactly happened?" Dean asked, sympathetic.

Jess sighed, smoothing the hair out of her face with a loud exhale, "Okay. I thought it would've been better to have Sam tell you. After last night when he realised his dad hadn't even told you that we'd had kids, we knew you probably wouldn't know anything that had happened since Sam left home."

"A lot's happened then?" Claire asked, intrigued at the thought of getting a straight answer to what's been going on with her brother since they came to Stanford.

Jess was silent for a second, closed her eyes momentarily before exhaling loudly and opening her eyes again. She looked straight at her brother-and-sister-in-law on the couch opposite before replying:

"I'll start from the beginning…"

**Ok, so normally when I'm writing this story (as I'm sure a lot of you have noticed) I flit between different characters' POVs pretty frequently. **

**And although I'm very aware that I flit a lot etc, I've recently had a review that pointed it out to me that it's not grammatically correct.**

**Now, I didn't really want to change the different POVs, because I feel that the best way to get a realistic and well rounded story is to show the effects of a storyline on **_**all**_** the characters involved, (and also because that's the easiest way for me to write anyway lol). So I thought the best way to answer this reviews' request was to maybe split them up a bit better. **

**I'm trying to improve all the time so thanks for the constructive criticism and although it was harder for me to write this chapter as erm…flowing-ly (? - is that a word? Oh well it is now) as usual, I did **_**try**_** and make it more defined who's POV it was but as I said at the beginning of the chapter, I did end up slipping back into my old ways… **

**So that's the full story behind the structure of this chapter. Whatcha think: is it better? Worse? Don't care? ;) lol**

**Either way hope you enjoyed the chapter anyway, talk soon guys, bye x x x**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey guys, first off I just wanted to say that I'm sorry! I am a bad person: It's been so long since I updated this story that even **_**I**_** can't remember all that's had happened in it ;) x**

**I'm sooooo sorry for the wait but now that I'm back from holiday hopefully I'll be able to write and update more regularly, like I did before I went away.**

**Just to warn you this chapter is mainly dialogue (sorry if this bores you to death) 'cos I wanted to get some background info in asap so this story can progress a little more ;)**

"_I'll start at the beginning…"_

"When we found out I was pregnant it was…hard. I mean it _was _great, a little earlier than we'd planned, but Sam and I were just so excited. What was hard were peoples' reactions and I can't really blame them: we were both only in our first year of college, and we lived in this _crazily_ small rented apartment in a really bad neighbourhood. We didn't even have a proper kitchen in that place - we used the sink in the bathroom and had a microwave on the coffee table which you always had to prop closed 'cos the door was broken and it would…" Jess caught her breath and blushed. Dean didn't think he was the only one to be relieved that she'd stopped talking a mile a minute, but nodded for her to continue anyway,

"Sorry" Jess said, "I'm rambling. I do that a lot, or at least Sam thinks I do, but I'd only end up talking for the both of us anyway, what with that silent, broody thing he always does"

Claire laughed - that was Sam alright, the deep thinker and first class brooder. Dean and Jessica shared a look, both acknowledging the others' understanding of the mystery that was Sam Winchester. Dean nodded at her to continue,

"Anyway, so I was three months pregnant when Sam finally decided to call you guys. He'd wanted to for years, that much was obvious, you only had to look at him to realise something was missing from his life, and that was his family" Jess leaned forward slightly, "I know he thought about you two everyday" she paused a minute before continuing, "and then he finally had a reason to call, to get back in touch with his siblings before he became a father. But it was _John_ who answered the phone…"

Claire couldn't fail to notice the atmosphere in the room change at the sound of her fathers name. from the sounds of things, this wasn't the first time their father had gotten involved in a negative way, and Claire once again cursed her father for keeping Dean and herself in the dark all these years.

Jess took a breath, looked her future brother-in-law straight in the eye, "I'll be honest, for a long time I thought he might've, you know, _hurt _Sam when you guys were kids" At Dean's horrified look she carried on, "Oh no, I mean Sam set me straight. **B**ut still I just, oh I dunno… I've just always had this feeling with John, like there was just something about him that wasn't right…" she trailed off and the trio sat stewing in their thoughts for a while. Dean, by far the biggest supporter of John Winchester out of the three, almost felt compelled to set this girl straight - his father was a hero, albeit not the most compassionate person, but a hero all the same. But he had a feeling there was more to this than meets the eye, more to Sam's problems with their dad than just resentment over arguments fought years ago. So he asked, "Our dad, did something happen? Did he do something?"

Jess sighed before replying, "He wouldn't come. Even when the twins were born and Sam asked him to visit. And it took a lot for Sam to do that, you know, your father really hurt him when he told him to stay away and not come back. But john wouldn't even spend a _day _here, not to see his son or meet his grandchildren…" Jess shook her head in obvious disappointment for Sam, "then one day he just turned up on our doorstep. Well, I say on our doorstep but… he sat parked outside in his truck all day, wouldn't even come inside for a coffee, he just sat there. And Sam was already acting weird that day - paranoid and jumpy. And when he saw your fathers' truck outside he _really _started acting weird…"

"Weird?" Claire asked, concerned for her baby brother. Dean leaned forward, piecing things together in his mind.

"Yeah he was spilling salt all over the place and I caught him doing something to the water supply to the house, he put something in it. I mean it could've just been having his dad so close after so long…"

"What day was this?" Dean asked suddenly.

"Well actually it was the twins 6month birthday when John turned up. I always… what?" Jess questioned as Dean and Claire made significant eye contact.

"Did anything else happen? Anything that night?"

"What do you mean? I don't… nothing happened really. Well except John but that…"

"What? What about him?" Claire asked.

"Well I mean, he broke into our house. He'd sat out in that truck all day. Kept the windows rolled up so Sam couldn't even talk to him, then I wake up in the middle of the night and go to check on the twins and…"

"Yes?" Claire asked, frantic now.

"He was in their nursery. Your father that is. Scott was still in the crib but John was holding Abby and just looking at her. He was just stood there, and then he suddenly passed her to me and left. Drove away, I mean within the next 10minuts he was gone. Sam was still asleep, he just thinks he left without a word to anyone, I suppose. It was weird: he looked at Abby like she was… I dunno, _to blame _for something, but he didn't even touch Scott"

Dean and Claire were a little stunned, both thinking the same thing. The way this story was going they were imagining… well. But there was no YED. What the hell was going on? All this and now with dad missing, gone after the YED to finish things once and for all… something was going on with their father, he knew something…

"And then the last time I saw John was after the…accident" Jess paused.

"The one that…"

"Yeah. It was around 9months ago now. We were all driving down towards my parents, they have a house a couple of hours away and we often go up on weekends just so they can see their grandkids, you know. Or we did, we don't really have the time anymore I suppose. We're still getting back on our feet and it's…" Jess trailed off, and the Winchesters let her.

She snapped out of her thoughts and gave them a watery smile, "Sorry, I was rambling again wasn't I?"

Claire gave her a short nod and a sympathetic smile, encouraging her to continue.

"This guy just came out of nowhere, drunk. Crashed into the drivers side where Sam and Scotty were… They said he died on impact. Too much damage for a body so small" Jess shook herself in a slight shiver, "John came to the funeral. Briefly. I saw him at the edge of the cemetery, he was standing well away from everyone else. He didn't speak to anyone just came and left. Oh and he stared at my daughter some more. Abby and I got away with cuts and bruises mostly, a broken arm on Abby's part as well. But Sam…"

"Sam?" Claire didn't like the way this story was going, Sam must've been alright, right?

"He had a massive traumatic head injury. Doctors said it was all too much for his body to cope with, and much too fast. So his body started shutting down… He was in a coma until nearly 2months ago."

Shock. Dean and Claire just sat there in absolute shock.

"A _coma_?" Claire asked, a thousand different thoughts swirling around her head.

Dean, always the one to take charge in a situation like this, asked "But if Sam only woke up 2months ago, shouldn't he be in hospital?"

"He refused" Jess answered simply, "Said he wanted to get back home right away, signed himself out AMA after 6days awake. I keep telling him he needs to be taking it easy but… I dunno, I think he likes to keep busy. I mean, for me, well I lost my son nearly a year ago now, but for Sam it's only been 2months since Scott died. You should've seen me 2months after the accident - I was a wreck. I've had my time to grieve, it still hurts, probably always will, but I can manage the pain now, you know? But Sam won't let himself, he spends all his time making sure Abby and I are alright…" Jess trailed off, looking at the floor. Dean silently nodded, completely understanding. And Claire sat there admiring the woman in front of her - although it was obvious she still grieved the death of her son, she must be a strong woman to be able to look after her boyfriend and daughters grief as well… "Strong like a Winchester" Claire couldn't help thinking.

Jess sighed, blowing out a breath before standing, "Well I should go check on Sam, I just thought you guys should know everything that's happened. Sam needs his family right now"

She started towards the kitchen.

"Jess" she stopped walking and turned towards Dean and the sound of her name, "Did our dad ever visit Sam when he was, you know…"

There was a pregnant pause. Jess looked away before replying.

"No" she answered shortly, turning back to look Dean in the eye, "he came to Scott's funeral and then he took off. - he didn't spend the night anywhere round here. And he never even went near the hospital"

And with that she turned and left the room through the kitchen door, leaving Dean and Claire in total silence.

**So there you have it, sorry about the wait but I went on holiday for three weeks then came home and had work and my little sister (the one Abby's based on btw) had broken her arm… oh, and it's my GCSE RESULTS DAY ON THRUSDAY 27TH****! Arghhhhhhhhhhh nooooooooooo ;) lol x**

**Also one more thing - I got a review from a reader asking for a chic-flick moment between the Winchester siblings, and I said "sure I'll put one in the next chapter" - well I lied (god I love lying). No seriously, that was the plan but then I started writing this and it ended up being just background and info and all that jazz, so it's **_**not **_**in this chapter BUT I have already planned the next one out and there will be a moment so chic-flicky it will make every version of Dean out there cringe ;) lol x**

**Hope you enjoyed it, talk soon guys, bye x x x**


	9. Chapter 9

**I actually kept my promise this time - I said I would update before results day and I did!! GCSE results day is tomorrow so good luck to all those getting their results like me :S eek x And also thanks to all those of you who wished me luck in your reviews for chapter 8 ;)**

**One last thing - I hit 50 reviews this week!!! YAY! So thank you to anyone who has ever reviewed this story, it really means a lot to get to 50 ;) x**

**Hope you enjoy the chapter guys x x**

And that was it: there were no more mentions of Scott or John for the rest of the week following that day when all had been revealed to Dean and Claire. The 'forbidden subjects' were simply ignored, as if they had never been mentioned at all and family life continued in the Winchester-Moore house, plus two extra Winchesters.

Dean and Claire spent their time getting to know their niece, future sister-in-law… and their little brother again. Jess and Claire had hit it off right away - both relived to have another female in the family to rival the majority of boys. The three Winchester siblings slipped back into the familiar routine of winding the other up for kicks, and were all surprised to be beaten in a verbal spar one day by none other than little Abby. Well she is a Winchester after all…

But out of all the friendships made or regained within the last week, none was stranger or more surprising than that of Dean and Abby. The two were rarely seen out of the others company, both united in their love for food, the Impala, and their favourite sport - Sammy Baiting. The mutual friendship that had been struck between the two was inevitable, Sam supposed: they both had the brains of a four year old after all.

Dean and Claire had taken up permanent residence in the guest room, and even the Impala had a spot of its own in the garage ("to protect it from the weather, and vandals and the people in this streets' driving" Dean had said, to which Abby, of course, had agreed, and even thrown her own "please daddy" - puppy-dog eyes and all - so long story short the Impala was in and Sam's Toyota was out).

All in all it seemed as if life was starting to look up for all the Winchesters (and one Miss Moore)… which of course, due to Winchester luck and timing, was why this was the day that everything started to go south. Starting with the unexpected arrival of…

_1 Hour Earlier…_

Jess, Abby and Claire were all sitting in the kitchen in various states of early-morning-consciousness. Abby was sitting in her chair at the counter, shovelling cereal absently in her mouth as she watched cartoons, Jess was bustling around with one shoe in her hand and the other… well actually that was the problem. And Claire was leaning sluggishly against the kitchen counter, a hot cup of coffee in her hands. Dean, of course, was still asleep upstairs, but the way Jess was rifling through pots and pans in the kitchen cupboard, Claire reckoned he wouldn't be for long.

"Where is that _damn shoe_?" Jess' mutterings were muffled as she stuck her head and shoulders inside the near-empty cupboard.

It was then that Sam entered the kitchen, stopping to throw a questioning look to Claire at the sight of his girlfriend on her hands and knees, shoulders deep in their kitchen cupboard. Claire simply shrugged, but Sam didn't miss the mischievous smile she tried to hide with a sip of coffee.

"Jess? Honey, what are you doing?" Sam asked, walking up behind her

"I'm finding my shoes", came a muffled reply, "I have one, just need the other" she waved the one 'found shoe' in the air behind her, before climbing out of that cupboard and starting her search in the fridge.

"You're looking for your shoes…" Jess nodded in reply before Sam continued, "in the _freezer-box_?"

"Well do you have a better idea?" she asked, a carton of milk nearly falling to the floor but stopped by Sam's quick reflexes, "I thought Abby might be hiding them again…"

Sam sighed, scrubbing at his eyes in exhaustion before speaking calmly, "Babe"

"What?" she asked, poking her head out to look at him absently.

He gestured with his coffee-mug towards the back door, "Your shoe's right there"

Jess looked, dumbstruck, from the shoe to her boyfriend's face and back again… before Claire couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing, "Oh I'm sorry but your face…" she giggled again and Sam attempted to hide his smile, but failed and was caught with a whack on his arm before Jess went to grab the offending item, placing it on her foot with the other one and sliding into a stool by the counter.

"Argh it's too _early_" she moaned, laying her head on the counter-top in exhaustion (and to hide the smile on her face).

"Let me guess" Sam said, sidling up to stand behind her and rubbing her shoulders, "That's the last time you'll ever drink?"

"Mmhmm" Jess nodded, "We stayed in Sam! Who feels this bad after waking up from a night where we all _stayed in_?"

"People who can't deal with babysitters and end up in a drinking competition with Dean at one in the morning" Sam mumbled in her ear sympathetically.

After Abby had been put to bed last night the four adults had all revelled in being young and free and…tipsy. The night had started with beer and wine, then Dean had pulled out a bottle of whiskey and challenged Jessica to a drinking match. Sam, still being on vast amounts of pills from the accident , had only drunk a few beers before calling it a night - content to watch his brother and girlfriend battle to the death. And Claire, a light-weight at the best of times, was too far gone on simply the wine to even think about drinking games. But Jessica accepted, ready to prove just how tough she could be, and took the first shot. The night continued like that, punctuated by 'out-there' thoughts from Claire every now and again, and slurred conversation between the others. The four had finally called it a night at 3am, Sam having carried a now sleeping Jessica upstairs, and Dean and Claire stumbling along together behind. All good fun last night, this morning however…

"It sounded like a good idea at the time" Jess moaned, "Anyway I won didn't I?"

Claire laughed, "Not quite, you passed out on Sam's lap"

Jessica's moan of disgust was punctuated by the kitchen door opening, revealing a very dishevelled looking Dean.

"Morning oh wondrous brother" Claire said cheekily, as Dean stumbled over to the counter where the coffee was, groaning a "shu-up" as he went.

Abby looked up from her cartoons to spy on the grown-ups. Mommy looked yucky, like she needed to sleep, and so did De. Aunty Cl-hair had black under her eyes, and they all smelt like socks and the brown stuff in Daddy's special bottle. Daddy looked fine, but then again, Daddy wasn't ever fine these days, never ever.

Daddy caught her looking and came over to whisper in her ear, "this is exactly the reason _you_, my daughter, are _never_ to drink…"

"Who're you trying to kid Sam?" Dean interrupted, sipping at his coffee and holding his head in one hand, "she's a _Winchester_"

Sam's grumbles were interrupted by another groan from behind him, to which he replied by promptly reaching into the overhead cupboard above his head, taking out the aspirin and three glasses which he filled with water, before passing them all out to the adults in need of some pain relief.

It was just then that the doorbell rang, causing Dean, Jessica and Claire to all groan loudly, clutching at their head in pain. Sam laughed and shook his head, hoisting his daughter up on his hip and walking out of the kitchen towards the front door. Taking Abby with him while he answered the door was really an act of kindness - neither of the three left in the kitchen were in any state to deal with her, should Abby decide that now was the time for her daily singsong - a phase, stated Jess, to which Dean decided to share a little phase that Sam himself had gone through when growing up : not wanting to wear clothes. Dean had described this little anecdote in great detail, even including dialogue, ("But Dean I'm free!!") in the authentic squeaky voice of the three year old Sam had been. Damn him. On second thoughts, maybe Sam should've left Abby in there with him...

Having arrived at the door, Sam snapped out of this thoughts, swinging the door open to reveal…

Sam stood in shock, the smile falling off his face and his arms slackening so that Abby was able to jump down onto the floor.

"Hello Sammy" came _his_ voice, a cold voice, laced with a hint of incredible sadness. _His_ eyes looked over Sam, who was standing stock still, bombarded with memories and grief, before moving to stare at Abby, who was peeking out from behind her fathers' leg.

_He_ bent down to the girl's height, an odd look in his eye, and looked her over silently before speaking in that cold voice, "Hello Abigail, do you remember me?"

She shook her head, getting stressed and agitated due to this strange man's close proximity and her daddy's stillness beside her.

"Well, no matter, I'm just here to right a few wrongs, set things right" _he_ looked sharply at Sam again, "you're both going to come with me now"

_His_ hand reaching out towards Abby caused her to cry out, and Sam to snap out of his shock, pushing his daughter further behind his leg and backing away into the house.

"Now Sam you should know better than this" the man stepped towards Sam again, "All I want is to make things right starting with your daughter…"

"Abby get back in the kitchen" Sam said urgently, "Now"

Abby turned and ran, the man looked stunned at this for a second before turning back to Sam, "I wish you hadn't just got the three in the kitchen involved with this, it'll make things a lot harder"

"You're not touching my daughter…"

"You've just made things a lot more _painful _for your girlfriend." _He_ cut in, eyes flashing, "And Dean and Claire"

Sam's eyes flashed murderously, "You…"

"Sam?" asked Jessica softly, she stood in the doorway, Dean by her side and Claire behind her holding a sobbing Abby. Her face held confusion and fear, before her eyes darted from her boyfriend to _him_.

There was silence between the 6 standing in the hallway before Dean addressed the man in front of him: "Dad?"

**Oooooh aren't I evil! So John Winchester has officially arrived, ready to reveal all… and cause more trouble ;)**

**But rest assured John-lovers John has his reasons (and twisted ideas of family) that makes everything make sense to him, as you will see.**

**It might get ugly….. **

**So tell me what you think - was it too cheesy or just plain blah?**

**Oh! And just to warn you, tomorrow (27th**** August) is my GCSE results day (arghhhh) then after that I have just less than 5days to try and get a place into a 6****th**** form before school starts. So I dunno how much time I'm gonna have for writing this next week but I will try. I know I'm terrible, so sorry in advance if I cant update for another week or so :S x**

**Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter and have a good week guys! x x x**


	10. Chapter 10

**Ok so here's the next one (58 reviews - YAY thanks guys!!) x**

**INFO - for the sake of this chapter, please just assume that Jessica already knows about the supernatural world - (it's not really a big factor that she knows but I just wanted to get on with the story instead of having to give Jess the whole "by the way it all exists" speech - I'm lazy, I know, but I don't think it would be that interesting for you guys to read anyway)**

**Alright, so Sam told her when she was pregnant, giving her a chance to leave him before the children were born (which she didn't obviously). She doesn't know the details (eg about devils traps or holy water), just that demons and spirits etc exist and that Sam and his siblings spent their childhood hunting them. **

**Far-fetched I know, but long story short she believes him ****à**** Jess knows about the supernatural.**

**Btw I'm guessing there are al lot of mistakes in this - only had a short amount of time to write it and get it up so didn't get to check it at all :S x**

**hope you like it guys x**

"_Dad?"_

Dean blinked stupidly a few times before continuing, "Dad, wha…"

John turned slowly, from looking at his youngest, to his two oldest children. He didn't meet their eye when he said, "Dean, Claire. I didn't want you to have to see this…"

"Dad what's going on?" this time Claire spoke up, holding Abby a little tighter in her arms at the sense of a threat in the air.

John took a deep breath, composing himself, before turning back to face his youngest.

"Abigail and Sam are gonna come with me now"

"Like hell they are" Jessica stepped forward to stand by Sam's side, eyes flashing and jaw clenched, giving John a look of obvious disdain.

John took another deep breath, letting it out as he spun to face her, "Jessica. It's erm… nice to see you again under better circumstan…"

"Oh don't you give me that. What do you want with my daughter? Or Sam?"

"I know you won't understand, but I just need to fix this" a sense of unnatural panic betrayed John as he spoke, so completely out of character that every Winchester in the room winced, "It's taken me too long to realise what's going on already but now I do" he turned back towards Sam, "Sammy, I was too late to prevent what happened to Scott, but I _can_ save Jessica"

"Wha... what are you talking about?" Sam stuttered, breathing sharply after the mention of his son's name.

John stepped towards Sam, speaking in "It was the demon Sam. I know it was"

"Wha.. _the_ demon" Dean asked, a little taken aback by what his dad was saying… and more importantly _how_ he was saying it.

"Yes Dean, the one that killed your mother killed Scott too" John faced his oldest as he answered.

Claire was now even more confused, "But the demon ca…"

"Sam?" Jessica's soft question caused everyone to stop still.

They all turned towards Sam, who had backed away slightly and was shaking his head over and over, his breathing coming in short panting breaths.

"No. no no no for _once_ this is _not _to do with the demon. Scott died because _I_ crashed our car. Not because of a demon or a spirit or a freaking…"

"No," John cut Sam off with a shake of his head, "no Sammy you don't understand. Yes, Scott died in a car accident but it was the _demon_ in the other car, It possessed that driver and drove him into the side of your car because it wanted to kill off Scott and Jessica, and he…"

"NO!" Sam shouted, causing everyone to flinch and Abby to shrink into Claire's grasp, "My son, died because _I _wasn't being careful enough, _not _because of a demon. Because if it was because of a demon then I would've been able to stop it. If it was a _demon_ that killed my son…" Sam's anger trailed off, leaving him with a quiet, broken voice to finish speaking, "Scott would still be alive"

Even little Abby was silent after this statement, Jessica looked ready to cry, blinking away tears, and Sam wasn't far off himself. This small moment of silence however was not to last long: John stepped slowly towards his youngest.

"I'm sorry Sammy" he said quietly, "But this is bigger than you think"

"I think you should leave" Jessica said brokenly.

John turned from her to look at his children. Claire was looking upset, rocking her niece in her arms, not even meeting her fathers' eyes. Dean was stepping forward, jaw clenched and eyes flashing in anger at his fathers actions (the actions that were hurting _his_ baby brother), grabbing John's upper arm to escort him out the door. Sam just looked broken.

John mentally shook himself out of his weak state - he'd come here for a reason, for _his children, _and he couldn't leave yet. Not without making up for being too late before. Not without telling Sam the whole truth, all the facts. Not without saving them.

Desperation clung at John, and in turn he clung at his youngest' arm even as Dean was pushing him outside the front door.

"No, Sam." Sam turned towards him, sad eyes met desperation, John begged for his trust "please just listen to me. I came too late to save Scott, but this time I'm _early_, I know what this SOB is planning and… Sam we can still save Jessica"

"_Stop_ it dad" Dean gave him a little shake as he spoke, "just leave". Dean pushed him out the door in anger, mentally running through a checklist of the number of lines their father had crossed in the past 15minutes. And the worst thing was that he was clutching at straws - he always _had_ been totally obsessed with finding the thing that killed their mom. So obsessed that he sometimes put the hunt before his own kids. Dean and Claire and Sam all knew this of course, it was old news, but with Sam in the mental state he was, still grieving the loss of his son… how _dare_ John try to make a connection with _the_ demon. That was crossing a line, a whole new low, and just _thinking_ of how screwed up Sam was gonna be after this made Dean just wanna…

Another hard shove saw that John Winchester was out the door, stumbling slightly but staying on his feet. He scrambled back as the door started to close, the stubborn…

"Sam,.. what if I'm right?" Sam once again made eye contact with his dad, eyes showing heartbreak and loss and grief… John knew that look all too well.

But the door was still closing, seemingly in slow motion, and all the while John stared at his youngest son, and Sam stared right back, their eye contact never breaking until it was blocked with the large block of wood that was a door slamming in Johns' face.

He stood there a second more in silence, heard racing from this emotional encounter with his children. But he couldn't give up, this was his _children_ he was talking about, he would just have to…

The door creaked open suddenly, the eye contact regained once more…

Sam gave his trust to his father in his next few words: "Tell me what you know"

**Ok, so you didn't learn anything new in this chapter, and its probably getting extreeeeeeemly boring, but I didn't have a lot of time to write this chapter (45mins in fact) as I've had a really busy week but wanted to get this chapter up asap (for BlueDragon007, as requested x x), so this is all you get for now - sorry!!**

**On a (completely different and nothing to do with the story so if unless you wanna you don't have to read this lil note) other note, I just wanted to say thank you so much for all your support and 'luck' in regards to my GCSE results. I did better than I expected (3A*s, 3As & 5Bs - for those of you who requested to know) and it really put a smile on my face that so many of you on here wished me good luck, so thanks again :D x x x**

**Take care guys, ppg713 x x x x **


	11. Chapter 11

**Just to warn you ahead of time, this chapter is **_**awful**_**. I have to be at work in 40mins so I'm sorry to say that it's probably **_**terribly**_** written but I wanted to just get the plot down so here you go - a page of word vomit ;) x **

**Just a quick note about the last chapter - I got a really mixed response about my decision to have Jessica already know the basics about the supernatural world, and mainly that I put it in a footnote at the top of the chapter instead of actually writing it (lazy I know, I still feel bad about that one - sorry), so I just thought I'd do a short recap as to why I did that - I didn't want to break the flow of the chapter with an "err what the hell are you talking about?" speech from Jessica, and I also needed Jess to play more of a 'supportive' role, if that makes sense, to Sam in that chapter and ones to come, instead of her being all "you're crazy, what the hell, etc etc", so the easiest way to by-pass all that trouble was just to skip it altogether :S**

**It's **_**extremely**_** lazy I know, but after a suggestion from a reader I might do a flashback scene in an upcoming chapter of how Jessica found out, although I'm un-decided so let me know if you'd be interested in that.**

**Sorry, again, that its been a long wait for this chapter, and thanks, again, for the amazing support I've gotten so far x **

**Enjoy x**

It was a tense moment, a tense situation. That much was certain. But still, while everyone else in the room took some time to get their thoughts in order, Dean simply couldn't stop his mind from wandering.

'The living room seemed to be the place for these sorts of conversations' he thought.

After all, when Claire and himself had first met Abby, it was straight into the living room to explain. Him and Claire on the far couch, Sam and Jess sitting on the one opposite. Same when Jess had finally come clean about Scott, living room, opposite couches. And same set-up this time too, the only difference being the players involved.

It was John on that far couch this time, sitting opposite Sam who was on the other. Dean was standing to the side, but firmly placed between both couches, ready to get involved if needed. Jessica was sitting close by Sam's side, clutching his hand in both of hers, and Claire… she was just trying to get Abby to leave the room. Abby seemed to have realised something wasn't right, 'smart kid' Dean thought, but it did seem to be making Claire's job a lot harder. After all, if Dean's past experiences were anything to go by, this conversation between Sam and their father wouldn't stay a conversation for long, and Dean supposed it probably _was_ sensible for Abby to be elsewhere when her dad and grandfather started trading punches. It wouldn't be the first time after all.

It would be the first time Dean took sides though. Their dad… he was being irrational, messy, playing with the emotions of people who had only recently lost a major part of their family. Dean of all people knew what that was like, their father too, so what possessed him to mess with his brother like this Dean didn't know.

Whatever it was, they were about to find out…

"Sammy" all eyes turned towards the first speaker, John, who by the looks of things was set to get this show on the road… _always was impatient_…

"It all started when I got in touch with a friend of mine, Missouri. She's a psychic..."

Dean scoffed, "Oh for the love of… a _psychic_ dad?"

John glared before replying, "_Yes_, a psychic. They exist. Isn't that right Sam?"

Eyes turned towards Sam, who had snapped out of his reverie to give their dad a bewildered look.

"Whaa…?"

"I know about the dreams Sam, the dreams you have that come true"

Dean was ready to scoff once again, clearly their dad was off his freaking rocker… until he saw the look in Sam's eyes, a look that showed guilt and shame and… acceptance.

Then Sam was clearing his throat and asking a question that confirmed Deans fears straight off: "How'd you…?"

"As I said before, I've been in touch with Missouri, she's a _psychic_. She's been helping me with tracking this demon, the one that killed your mother and… well, using our contacts and her… _skills, _together we found out what it's been planning"

And of course it was now that John decided to take a breath - like father like son, he and Sammy sure loved to make them wait for the important details.

"And?!" patience was clearly not Claire's strong suit today…

"Psychic kids. He's after psychic kids. I trapped a demon, managed to get quite a few names out of it. Sam, you were one of them…"

Eyes snapped towards Sam, who nodded harshly in acceptance, eyes staring at an unidentifiable spot on the floor. Dean couldn't help but notice Jessica tighten her grip on Sam's arm.

But John wasn't done yet, another bombshell was about to be dropped…

"and another is Abby"

Aaaaand boom.

"Abby?" Jess spluttered, grip on Sam's arm tightening so much her knuckles bleached white.

"Yeah, she's one of a younger generation of psychic kids." typical John with the matter-of-fact tone.

"But what can she… I mean, she cant be psychic she can't do anything… different" Dean cut in, this was just absurd after all.

"She was on the list the demon gave me Dean, and I double checked with another one I trapped to be sure. She's definitely psychic."

Everyone stopped to take it all in a second, before Sam suddenly spoke, "Dad when did you find this out? When did you trap this demon?"

Good question, Dean thought, but he wasn't sure he was looking forward to the answer if his Dad's face was anything to go by. But at least he had the balls to look ashamed as he replied, "The day the twins were born"

Sam swore, looking away angrily, their Dad carried on with something akin to regret in his voice "I'm sorry Sam, but I just… when you called to tell me the twins names, and you said Abigail Winchester… I couldn't face you Sammy, I needed to find out it was true first, I needed to be sure"

Sam jumped up, pent up energy and anger being released as he paced in front of the couch, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

"You had no right" he said suddenly, menace in his voice that gave even Dean the shivers, "she's my daughter, you had no right to keep this from me…"

"And what would you've done? Hmm? I'll tell you what you would've done, driven yourself crazy over it as I have over you" Sam stopped to make eye contact with their father, before he continued, quieter, "But it's different now, that's why I'm _here _Sammy, I have a _plan_ now…"

"Just… what's this got to do with Scott?"

Again, _good question_, but Dean had a feeling of dread over this one like no other. Whatever reason Scott was mixed up in this, it wasn't good.

John let out a deep sigh, _'alright John' _he told himself _'it's now or never, just do it - like ripping off a band-aid'._

"I erm… I trapped another demon this week, up in Wyoming, this one was pretty high up, or had a high enough status to know things that other demons didn't anyway." John was stalling, but a pleading look from his youngest gave him what he needed to carry on, "The car crash that killed Scott was set-up. The demon that killed your mother had been tailing you on and off for around a month, and for some reason, I don't know why, it decided that it wanted Scott and Jessica out of the picture…"

"But I wasn't even hurt in the crash," Jess cut in suddenly, "I got away with cuts and bruises, if it wanted me out of the way then how am I still alive?"

The girl had a point… Dean thought.

But John had an answer to everything: "As I said, it had been tailing you for about a month, it got to know your habits - what side of the car Scott sat on, the route you took to visit your parents… the fact that you and Sam take turns in driving - that when you visit your parents Sam drives there and you, Jessica, drive home."

Sam tightened his hold around Jessica, realisation hitting them all simultaneously.

"Oh god" Jess choked, "we swapped" she turned violently towards Sam, eyes wide and tearful, "we swapped Sam, you drove home instead because I'd had that extra glass of wine."

Sam nodded slightly as he pieced it all together, but Jess still looked distraught.

"Yeah you swapped. The demon wasn't to know that you were going to change your habits, that's why all the impact was on the drivers side - it was meant for Scott and you, Jess. But with Sam driving he gained the impact instead"

Silence hit them all.

Sam and Jess clung to each other, both lost in the what-ifs of that night, and Claire and Dean unconsciously moved closer together, Claire jiggling Abby's position on her hip.

"But why?" Jess asked shakily, "what does it want with Abby and Sam, and why did it need Scott and I out of the way?"

John shrugged his shoulders, never one to admit when he didn't know something.

"But Sam, what I do know is that it's coming back to finish the job"

Dean had a pretty good idea where their dad was going with this but wanted to be sure before giving himself cause to panic - if Sam lost Jessica too… "Finish the job as in…"

"Kill Jessica, yes."

Sam made a strangled sound in the back of his throat at the thought, and the couple clung together even more.

"But I have a plan Sam, we can stop it" John took a breath, trying to block out the image of his youngest son with tears in his eyes and fear written plainly on his face.

Sam nodded, eyes focussed on that spot on the floor again, before speaking in a voice both vulnerable and dangerously strong, "When?"

Sam and John made eye contact, the seconds seemed to tick by slower as they had silent conversation…

"Tonight" he finally spoke, drawing a small gasp from Claire, and a flinch from Sam "The demon's coming for Jessica tonight."

**Yes I'm aware it's rough, yes I'm aware it has mistakes, yes I'm aware it's probably really out of character for all characters involved :S I'm really sorry guys, I know its probably a **_**really**_** annoying way for me to write for you, and I have no excuse except that I now have only 15mins to get to work for a 4hour shift, so I really gotta go ;) x**

**I'll try and update asap, hope you have a great week guys, take care x x x **


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey guys it's been a while and I apologise for that - (nearly) full explanation as to my long absence at the end of this chapter just so you guys don't think I abandoned you on purpose.**

**Also, sorry if this chapter seems really mixed up - especially with the POVs - my minds a little mixed up right now, therefore so is the chapter I guess :S hope its not too unbearable for you x**

**Enjoy guys x**

The time ticked slowly, so slowly it seemed not to move at all.

It had been hours since John had finally explained himself to his children, but no one had really had time to dwell on it too much, they were all too busy preparing. Preparing for the demon that was set to arrive, according to John, in precisely…

"35minutes" John looked up at his oldest from his position leaning against the hallway floor.

"And how do you know this again?" Dean whispered back, earning a sigh from his father

"I told you Dean, I've been trailing this demon for years, he _always_ operates at quarter to midnight, like clockwork."

Dean nodded silently, turning away to stare at his sister opposite him against the wall.

John, Claire and Dean had positioned themselves in the hallway for the time being, shotguns resting on their laps and flasks of holy water hidden from view, but close at hand. John sat on one side of the nursery door, Dean on the other, and Claire opposite Dean nearest the stairs. Sam, Jessica and Abby were sat together on the other side of the stairs. Sam held a .45 concealed underneath his jacket, Jessica sitting practically on top of him, holding a sleeping Abby close to her chest. Sam's free arm was around them both protectively, and he alternated between staring at the floor and at his concealed weapon.

_Yes,_ they were spending the night in the hallway, and _yes_ the mood was sombre and tense, but they were all making the effort to react as normally as possible to the situation so as not to freak Abby out. Easier said than done but after other certain revelations earlier that day… well it was better to be safe than sorry.

As according to Sam and Jess, Abby had a certain intuition for these sorts of situations - it seemed that she could sometimes tell what her parents were feeling without them having to say it out loud. Of course it was only now, after John's little speech earlier that day, that any of them had even considered that she might be an _empath_ - absorbing their emotions like an overactive sponge with pigtails. But it certainly made sense to Dean now he'd mulled things over (and trust that there'd been time to mull things over in the hour or so he'd spent camped out on the hallway floor).

Even now, at nearly four years old, she seemed emotionally intelligent beyond her years - understood her fathers sadness enough to let him hug her nearly to death earlier that week, and her mothers fear enough that she'd refused to leave the room before John's whole spiel earlier today. Of course this was all in hindsight, but it had still been unofficially accepted as the truth by the entire family since John had suggested it in passing, hours before...

Dean shook himself out of his thoughts to look at his sister. She was nervous as hell, that much was clear, and she had yet to move from her spot on the floor. She shifted uncomfortably, causing a rustling sound to be heard through the night, which seemed to add to the building tension all the more. This rustling caused her to look up guiltily , something Dean was grateful for as it gave him a chance to make eye contact with her, giving her a small smile of encouragement. She smiled back weakly, eyes diverting to look at their little brother.

Curled up on the floor with his family, he looked extremely lost, as he had done all day in fact. It had started when John had explained his plan of action for the night, specifically after he had mentioned his "yeah-so-we're-gonna-use-your-girlfriend-as-bait" idea.

Sam had blatantly refused: no way was Jessica going to be dangled in front of that demon like a worm on a hook, no freaking way.

To which their dad had countered: its either your girlfriend or your daughter.

And Sam had something to say about that one, that's for sure. They all had in fact, Yeah, Dean and Claire had only been back in touch with their brother for little over a week, and they had only known Jess and Abigail for the same amount of time, but the fact remained that they were family. And you don't even _think_ about using your family as bait to anything, let alone a demon. Not ever.

Soon after that little issue had been resolved (and resolved here meaning John and Sam butting heads over nearly everything, 'just like old times', and everyone else shaken and severely stressed) there had been the argument between Sam and Jess. Sam had wanted to send her and Abigail to her parents, or to their friends place round the corner, or even across the sate line at one point. Testimony to Jessica's character she had refused (with a few choice words not meant for Abigail's ears) but Sam had been pretty adamant that she be as far away from the house as possible…

_4 hours earlier_

_Jessica was slowly watching her house, their children's home, being turned upside down. While John was laying salt lines at the window, Dean was painting some sort of star-shaped symbol on the living room ceiling, and Sam… well he was taking apart a gun or two on the coffee table. _

_Yeah she knew all this supernatural stuff existed, but she always thought that knowing would be enough - never expected to be up to her eyeballs in psychics and hunters and demons. But then again, she never thought that she'd have buried her only son before turning 30 either, so she was taking it in her stride. So far anyway. She watched transfixed as her boyfriend took a handgun out of the bag at his feet, laying it next to a couple of shotguns on the coffee table. They loved that table: solid wood with a slight wear to it that they'd got at a thrift store for under $30. Their kids learned to stand by that table - Abby first naturally, she was always the more independent of the two, and then Scott later that day. She had pulled herself up with her chubby hands grasping the wood in the two groves on the far left side, and her little brother perched strategically behind her, ready to cushion her fall should she lose her balance (and she did, and he did just like they knew he would). _

_Doing a double-take now, Jess couldn't help notice that the grooves her daughters hands had fit into were now being filled with bullets. _

_A wave of emotion washed over her suddenly and she looked away with a gasp. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sam look up sharply, pausing in his actions and placing the items on the table before jumping off the floor. He was by her side in a second, fingers tilting her head up to meet his gaze, a concerned look in his eyes. She rewarded him with a small smile - the months spent apart, him in a coma and her in the waking world, had certainly taken their toll on the couple, but it was times like this she was reminded that they still knew each other as well as they always had. _

_She was vaguely aware that their private moment was being observed by three other Winchesters across the room, but for now she couldn't bring herself to care - Sam needed this, she needed this. No words were needed in the conversation that followed: Sam tilted his head to the side ("are you alright?")_

_To which she had nodded, eyes never leaving his for an instant. He could see right through her of course, his arms tightening round her waist to pull her closer._

_It wasn't just her - he was worried too, she could tell by the way he tensed his jaw and his eyes frowned at the corners, but the difference was that Jessica could see the beginnings of panic in his eyes. Silence be damned, they needed words:_

"_Sam…" she started, but was swiftly interrupted._

"_You're not safe here" he stated simply_

_Jess prided herself on being able to handle almost any Sam-erism thrown at her, but she didn't know what to say to this one._

"_You and Abby aren't _safe_ here" he said again, this time as if he was trying to convince himself._

_Trying desperately to read his expression, again she stayed silent, but the confusion and pain could be clearly seen in her eyes._

_Sam however seemed to take her silence for acceptance: "I don't think Becky would mind if you stayed the night there, or you could get a hotel room, go to your parents…" he murmured, but still making no effort to untangle himself from her._

"_No Sam" she managed to croak out of her suddenly dry throat._

_Now he pulled away, walls going up and walking away from her towards the closet in the corner._

"_You've got to leave. Now"_

"_Sam, no. Please just… Sam?" Jess tried to get his attention, make eye contact, but he had produced his old duffle from the closet and was hurriedly shoving some of Abby's toys into it, looking around almost frantically for more to put into the bag… "Sam!"_

_Jess grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to drop the bag and to look her in the eyes finally. And they froze like that, her hands cupping his face and his clutching her shoulders, a lost look in his eyes. He was breathing heavily, shaking his head slightly with a pained look in his eyes which she completely understood. _

"_I'm staying right here. With you" she said, clearer than before._

_He gave her a pleading look, Sam-speak for ''I want you here but I _need_ you safe". Her gaze remained unwavering to Sam's request, until finally he nodded._

_She held him tighter, oblivious to Dean and John and Claire and even her Abigail for the minute - it was just the two of them. Sam nodded again, stronger now, arms tightening around her waist in response to her._

"_And we'll be fine", Jess said, close enough to count the freckles on his nose and feel his breath on her cheek, "Sam, we're all gonna be just fine"…_

4 hours later

Yes, time was ticking along agonisingly slow for the inhabitants of number 17, but the quiet wasn't going to last much longer: even as they sat there on the hallway floor, something evil and dark was making its way towards them through the night sky. It made its way down the street, up the front path. Raising it's hand, palm up, the front door slid open without a sound, brushing against the recently laid salt line, to create a small but significant gap. The demon stepped over the threshold with a smirk: it could almost smell the smoke and fear… before heading inside.

**xxx**

**Alright so, I've gotten a lot of messages in the past month or so asking where I'd gone and why I hadn't been updating, so firstly I'd like to say how truly sorry I am that I didn't reply to those or updated this fic sooner.**

**So an explanation is needed: long story short, the reason for my unplanned hiatus was that about a month and a half ago my mum died. And not only have I had to deal with that cos that's been hard enough believe me, but I've also had to try and sort out somewhere for me and my four year old sister to live now, since the only family I've ever known was my mum and sis. I've been lucky enough so far that my boyfriends parents have given my sister and I a place to stay for the time being, So hopefully you can kind of understand now why I've been away - as much as I would've loved to update this for you guys, pretty much all my time has really been spent talking to lawyers and social workers (and receiving casseroles as well, to be honest - its not just a cliché).**

**Its probably weird for me to be publishing this aspect of my life on the internet, but I felt you guys should be given at least some explanation, as I never wanted to leave a story for so long and certainly no comments or emails un-replied to. That, and oddly enough I think this has actually helped a little bit writing this all out.**

**Alright so that's enough of my rambling :S once again I'm sorry for the hiatus, and that this chapters a little (lot) rough around the edges, hopefully next time it'll be better x **

**Have a great week guys x x**


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